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Tech firms face growing resentment of parent employees during Covid-19

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Re: Tech firms face growing resentment of parent employees during Covid-19

#471

Post by zarkov99 »

CydeWeys wrote: post #430
zarkov99 wrote: post #401

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you are on to something. Many people are happy to be generous with others time and money but less so with their own.

That's not it exactly. It's more about everyone pulling equal weight, not about getting freebies at others' expense. It's also about the correct realization that some problems can only be solved by the actions of society as a whole, that individual choices alone cannot sufficiently solve the problem. E.g. I alone can't solve the problem of catastrophic climate change no matter how green I live in my own life.

To be clear, what I am referring to are people who would want someone other than themselves to be more generous to someone other than themselves. This a very common pathology in well-off, educated people. You get the virtue points without the actual sacrifice.

Re: Tech firms face growing resentment of parent employees during Covid-19

#472

Post by nickff »

newen wrote: post #452
nickff wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except that the children disproportionately benefit the parents (unlike jury duty or military service). This is a heads-parents-win, tails-childless-lose scenario. Your comment would be completely correct if the children ceased all communications and transactions with the parent upon entry into the labor force; but that's not what happens.

Well, your social security money will be coming directly from those kids working. Just one example of non-parents benefiting. In fact, your entire existence as an old person will be completely dependent on those kids working.

The comment I replied to said that parenthood was like military service or jury duty, whose residual benefits accrue equally to the entire populace, and I was simply pointing out that parenthood was different.

Non-parents get many benefits from children, but the parents get far more. To be clear, I think many of the arguments for subsidizing the rearing of children are coherent, such as arguments in favor of public schooling and healthcare (on the basis that the children are the primary beneficiaries), but I think those arguments do not apply to the parents' workplace.

Re: Tech firms face growing resentment of parent employees during Covid-19

#473

Post by shiftpgdn »

rhizome wrote: post #459
rootusrootus wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ignoring the obvious downsides for a moment, I'd happily trade places with one of my childless coworkers right about now. This morning I went up and down the stairs at least ten times while trying to get my 7- and 9-year old kids successfully established in their first remote learning session, simultaneously participating in two consecutive Zoom meetings with coworkers, and figuring out how to solve a nagging issue i…

A BIG chunk of all that drama is due to the US social safety net not including childcare. That's the thing disturbing thing about these stories: employees are turned against each other when it's a) the company; and b) your tax dollars, not providing any kind of built-in childcare for society. In France, kids can go to preschool and have pre- and post- school childcare, which has to be paid, but it's only like $500/mo…

Yes but isn't that childcare in france gone?

Re: Tech firms face growing resentment of parent employees during Covid-19

#474

Post by syntaxing »

I understand the stance of "taking responsibility of your actions", such as deciding to have a kid, but I'm pretty surprised how people view the current situation. At one point, society has to decide when to help those in need for benefit of society and your morality. How is this any different from any other natural disaster? You wouldn't expect one of your colleagues to work normally if they lost their house to a wild fire. You wouldn't tell them, "well you shouldn't of decided to live in a wild fire prone area. Suck it up and figure it out.".

Re: Tech firms face growing resentment of parent employees during Covid-19

#475

Post by maxerickson »

quadrifoliate wrote: post #362
kevstev wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a mid 30s childless man I completely agree. We essentially sent people home on a Friday, told them to figure out a work from home situation, and then they were told welp your kids aren't going to school either, and whatever childcare you had lined up has now vanished too- and this is all happening in the course of a few days at most. So now you have kids to worry about all day, home schooling to oversee, focusing…

> Maybe I am making assumptions here on the general political leanings of those here, but if you are talking about supporting anything like Medicare for all, UBI, BLM, PPP or even just support the Democratic party in general, pulling a little extra weight for those in a time of need is IMHO a relatively small ask that you as an individual can implement compared to those agendas. I suspect a fair number of the complai…

FMLA covers caregiver leave. The law is fine with it being unpaid though.

It's weird that companies are looking inside people's homes to decide how to treat them. People should get the same flexibility, for whatever reason. If people want reduced hours to deal with other things, give it to them, and so on.

Re: Tech firms face growing resentment of parent employees during Covid-19

#476

Post by yibg »

loosescrews wrote: post #122
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #4

I am a middle-aged adult with no children who's worked at tech firms for the past couple decades. To be honest, the "resentment" of those without children have for "benefits" those with children get strikes me as extremely selfish, immature and displaying a total lack of empathy. This is time off specifically to take care of children, something now that has become exceedingly more difficult in Covid times. What's nex…

At least in the US, the pandemic has changed everyone's life created stress for everyone. These policies seem to indicate that non-parents don't have an additional burden worth recognizing. It is easy to see it this way too as most of the managers and executives at big tech companies are parents. For young non-parent tech workers, this may be the first time that they have to figure out how to feed themselves during t…

There's also arguably more psychological impact on young single people who live by themselves and are used to and rely on the companionship of friends.

I worked with a couple of youngish folks that have just recently moved for work internationally. They've been in the new city from a few weeks to a couple of months when the lockdowns hit. They seem pretty isolated socially and now even as things are opening up a bit, the avenues for socializing and meeting new people in a new city is greatly reduced.

Re: Tech firms face growing resentment of parent employees during Covid-19

#477

Post by rdtwo »

fizixer wrote: post #355

A job in big tech is not a job. It's half a job, half a privilege. Perfectly capable s/w developers fail big tech interviews for the tiniest slip-ups in a day long coding marathon. Big tech response: "We can afford to lose perfectly capable s/w developers as false positives during interviews, cz the supply for filling up our positions is abundant." A significant number of capable s/w developers even acknowledge that,…

Lol

Re: Tech firms face growing resentment of parent employees during Covid-19

#478

Post by maxerickson »

rayiner wrote: post #463
quadrifoliate wrote: post #362

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Maybe I am making assumptions here on the general political leanings of those here, but if you are talking about supporting anything like Medicare for all, UBI, BLM, PPP or even just support the Democratic party in general, pulling a little extra weight for those in a time of need is IMHO a relatively small ask that you as an individual can implement compared to those agendas. I suspect a fair number of the complai…

> I suspect a fair number of the complainers are people with Democratic leanings, and I think I can describe their thought process to you. > I think their problem is that a private company is doing this, not the Government. Is that a Democratic take? I think it's a liberaltarian take on it. Here's the conservative libertarian response: raising children is one of the primary functions of society, and social norms that…

What's the conservative libertarian take on what to do when those norms are gone and haven't been replaced?

Re: Tech firms face growing resentment of parent employees during Covid-19

#479

Post by rdtwo »

emerged wrote: post #63
olliej wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What’s that reason? Because to my knowledge people aren’t forced to have children. This phrase exists to attack those without children by portraying people who made a different choice as having a privilege, when many literally can’t have children. Privilege is something you have irrespective of your choices, you don’t get to portray the consequences of your choices as if other people have privilege.

Sort of like buying a car and then referring to people who haven't bought the car as privileged for still having the money the car cost. Except in this case, the people who didn't buy the car are already actively paying taxes toward services for those cars even though they don't have one.

But both are pissed because one is paying taxes and the other not getting services

Re: Tech firms face growing resentment of parent employees during Covid-19

#480

Post by ShroudedNight »

MacsHeadroom wrote: post #280
loosescrews wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At least in the US, the pandemic has changed everyone's life created stress for everyone. These policies seem to indicate that non-parents don't have an additional burden worth recognizing. It is easy to see it this way too as most of the managers and executives at big tech companies are parents. For young non-parent tech workers, this may be the first time that they have to figure out how to feed themselves during t…

As a childless person who cooks fine, the hardest part of this pandemic has been the mental toll of the sudden loss of everything that gives my life meaning- nights out with friends, concerts, festivals, etc. I don't have the fortune of getting a sense of meaning from being a parent. Go ahead and tell me how the things I get meaning from pale in comparison to being a parent and how I just need to suck it up. Does tha…

Your burden is real. The loss of connection you suffer, especially if you live alone, is legitimately devastating. Very few amongst us can go indefinitely without an on-going external investment of care. While I believe that it's just to provide parents with the slack they need to continue as healthy contributors, I also firmly believe that we owe you and all those that suffer differently, an incomparable, but adjacent duty to provide care and support in the ways that address your needs.

As far as I can tell, the right course of action would be for each of us, parent or otherwise, to outwardly acknowledge the ways that the pandemic has harmed us and the ways others could support us, while also advocating for and contributing to the well-being of our peers.

So long as we're focused on receiving a fungible equity that compares directly to our peers, I think that we will be grabbing at ever less valuable scraps of a torn social fabric while ultimately denying ourselves and our peers the benefits that would provide the satisfaction of a high-trust emotionally robust collaborative environment.

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